Gösta Adrian-Nilsson
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"Brinnande skepp"
Signed GAN. Executed in 1927. Canvas 54 x 73 cm.
Provenance
The artist Axel Olson, Halmstad.
Kerstin Liljefors, Lund.
Private collection.
Exhibitions
Malmö Museum, "GAN", 1 - 23 October, 1955, cat. no. 45.
Lunds Konsthall, "GAN and Wiwen Nilsson", 3 July - 28 August, 1977, cat. no. 155.
More information
Gösta Adrian-Nilsson describes his strongest art experience as a 14-year-old to Marcus Larson's romantic painting “Sea in moonlight with lighthouse and burning steamboat”, painted by the artist in 1859. Seeing Larson's famous giant painting in the Academic Society's red-brick castle in Lund in the late 1890s gave the young GAN a lifelong inspiration. Fifty years later, he responded to a survey in Stockholms-Tidningen about which painting had made the strongest impression on him, and wrote Marcus Larson's “Burning Steamboat” in Lund:
“I stood there paralyzed. There were certainly other people in the room /.../, but I heard no other sounds than the crackling of the fire, the furious roaring of the waves, and I saw no other movements than those emanating from the wild clouds, the sizzling snake throws of the waves and the fire. To me the whole world was on fire, tossed hither and thither by the storm, under the ever-shifting clouds of the moon. The lighthouse spark was lost among other sparks, and there was no salvation for the burning boat but to be crushed against the rocks. /.../ But no painting in the world has grabbed me like the one that grabbed the thirteen-year-old in a breathless moment, when the boundaries of space were obliterated and the boy himself became a flame in the flames of the burning steamboat in Marcus Larson's painting.” (GAN in Stockholms-Tidningen's Sunday supplement, December 19, 1948).
The artist Axel Olson writes in his diary from 1919 about his first meeting with GAN and the painting “Burning Ship” from 1918:
“So we discuss the Gothenburg Museum where we have just been - for the first time. We have in common our admiration for Cézanne, van Gogh, Bonnard, Delacroix, Ole Kruse. Renoir is good /.../, Leander Engström's things in the museum he doesn't seem to have too much admiration for. Grünewald he despises, Jolin he smiles at. - On the other hand, he greatly admires Marcus Larson. Later in the evening we see a couple of things that Adrian-Nilsson painted during his stay here. One is a railway accident, a drama. The other is better and depicts a burning ship in a storm. Many have painted fire, but no one, I am convinced, has painted it like Adrian-Nilsson in this canvas /.../ As a whole, the painting is strongly reminiscent of Marcus Larsson. (Quoted from the catalog GAN. Gösta Adrian-Nilsson. The period 1914-1932, Mjellby Art Museum, Halmstad 2002).
Time after time, motifs with obvious inspiration from Marcus Larson's romantic imagery can be found in GAN's repertoire, but which receive different treatment in the following periods. In 1927, the motif of dramatic sea scenes returns and GAN paints “Shipwreck”, which is now part of Malmö Museum's collections, as well as the painting in the auction. The memory that was created in the young 14-year-old GAN in front of Marcus Larson's painting “Sea in moonlight with lighthouse and burning steamboat” can be seen well preserved in the auction painting.
Artist
Gösta Adrian-Nilsson is most notable as a visual artist, and he is a pioneer of Swedish modernism. He studied at the Tekniske Selskabs Skole in Copenhagen and later for Johan Rohde at Zahrtmann’s school in Copenhagen. As an avant-gardist, Nilsson was constantly searching for new influences. In Berlin, he was influenced by the circle around the radical magazine Der Sturm, through Kandinsky and och Franz Marc. In Paris through Fernand Legér and the artists in his circle. GAN was an eclectic in the positive sense of the word. He took the the artist styles of the 1900s and created new impressions. Symbolism, cubism, futurism, expressionism, constructivim and Theosophy were the colours occupying his internal pallet. He had a sharp eye for the masculine and his painting was often energized by the vitality of modern technology, vibrant eroticism, and echoes of tyrants. No other Swedish modern artist exhibits such a unique style.
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